THE Coordinating MINISTER for Maritime Affairs and Investment (Menko Marves), Luhut Pandjaitan, recently launched a discourse on granting dual citizenship or dual citizenship to the talented diaspora. Responding to this, Member of Commission I DPR RI Christina Aryani assessed Luhut’s discourse as a breath of fresh air for Indonesian citizens who have lived or worked abroad for a long time.
“The Coordinating Minister for Maritime Affairs and Fisheries’ statement provides fresh air for dual citizenship aspirations,” said Christina in a statement to the media, in Jakarta, Monday (6/5).
Christina said that this plan might be realized through a revision of the Citizenship Law which has been included in the 2019-2024 National Legislation Program (Prolegnas).
“Of course political will is needed from the government so that the preparation and discussion of the revision of the citizenship law can be pushed through the DPR RI,” said Christina.
Christina further said that the aspiration of dual citizenship has long been fought for by the Indonesian diaspora abroad and the mixed marriage community. According to him, Indonesia has lost quite a lot of talented talents who then chose to renounce their Indonesian citizenship for various reasons.
“Such as those who work abroad as scientists, academics, professionals or children of mixed marriages. “This phenomenon is known as brain drain or the departure of human resources (HR) from one country to another,” explained this politician from the Golkar Party faction.
Also read: DPR asks the government to speed up the legalization of Thom Haye, Ragnar Oratmangoen and Maarten Pae as Indonesian citizens
Furthermore, Christina explained, Law Number 12 of 2006 concerning Citizenship currently adheres to the principle of limited dual citizenship which is given to children from mixed marriages until the child is 18 years old. Then the child must choose a nationality. He believes that this is the reason why many of the Indonesian diaspora have given up their citizenship.
“The next step is to choose which nationality you want to give up. “For this selection process, the law provides a grace period of 3 years or until the child in question is 21 years old,” said Christina.
Based on her research, Christina said that many members of the diaspora were forced to choose to give up their Indonesian citizenship for various reasons, one of which was economic.
Also read: The large Muslim population is the reason why Ragnar Oratmangoen wants to be naturalized
For this reason, implementing dual citizenship can prevent Indonesia from losing talented human resources.
“Even though further study is still needed, the contribution of the diaspora with dual citizenship to economic growth, through investment and so on, is also likely to increase, as has happened in several countries that have implemented dual citizenship,” concluded Christina Aryani.
(Z-9)
#Dual #Citizenship #Discourse #Fresh #Wind #Diaspora
